It’s been approximately a year already since the bes conference in Belfast. My last conference in presence before these all big mess (for lack of better words) began. Thankfully the BES conference will be happening online , and even more thankfully they have made their traditional 12 months in ecology lecture open to all. And even recorded it for YouTube! This year it was Prof Jane Hill taking it, so what you will find in this post is merely my interpretation of it and so I recommend to go watch the original! If 2019 was the year where climate change concerns boomed, then 2020 is the year when we become aware of the consequences.
If Covid 19 wasn’t enough of a warning, climate records are continuing to get broken and the worrying news in ecology this year is that we are not doing enough in terms of land conservation and we are failing to meet the convention on biological diversity targets. Further than that, insectageddon is happening, where we are losing more and more insect species. But here is the good bit of eco optimism: people are starting to care. The reaction to this news was bigger than the reaction to the announcement of the 6th mass extinction back in 2004. We are making progresses. And it’s good to be optimists somehow. Yes Because we are making some progresses One challenging thing is the reintroduction of wild species: how do you know how far back to go? What really should be considered as RE introduction and what may be now considered as a new introduction (because it has been too long since the species was last present?). Plus, reintroduction is hard and it is not certain that one will succeed. But Jane presented some great examples of successful restoration, from the white stork project to the large blue butterfly! Something to be optimistic about… Aside from reintroducing, one must protect the habitat. While we are nowhere near conserving enough, there are some great examples of successful protection. For example thinking about connectivity when planning new protected areas, and yes not only protecting pristine but also degraded and logged forests. While it’s of course a challenge to plan, it is important to consider ecological drivers- and this seems like a step in the right direction. And on top of that, there are now zero deforestation commitments. And she provided some great examples of the leading deforestation causes, beef at the top, followed by soy, oil palm and paper. So yes, while being vegan may help, it is a re iteration that soy products are not the best solutions. All in all, a great balanced talk. Some things that we must still work for and improve, but also some reasons to be optimistic that all of our hard work may pay off some day. Let’s just do more of it and convince governments that it is something worth paying for!!
1 Comment
Jackie
12/1/2020 01:09:13 am
THANK YOU for sharing some optimism on the environmental front! It really does seem like there's a new wave, people actually CARING.. let's hope this momentum continues 💙
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